Empty Eyes
by Frisky Wallabee
Summary: David can see everyone else's pain except his own. Slashy. Javid. FF ruined the spacing and won't let me change it so sorry for that.


I want him to see me. I mean, really see me. Look into my eyes and see something there that other people wouldn't see. I see that in him. I look in his eyes and I see spurs and lassos. I see horses and hot weather. Once I saw a horned crown but I don't know what that one means. It wasn't the first time I saw things and he wasn't the first person. I once saw sickles in my father's eyes. Sickles and a broken chain. A month later, he broke his arm. I've seen moons in Sarah's eyes. Empty, new moons or full moons that were stuffed with longing and grew fuller each month. She told me that she hasn't bled in months. I'm not sure what she means but it made me sick to my stomach. I've seen red flashes in Spot's eyes. Red blotches and blobs and exploding stars. I've seen whole oceans in Blink's eye. I've seen stars and animals in Les's eyes. I've seen bruises and knives in Oscar DeLancey's eyes. But what do I see in my own eyes? A look into the mirror proves nothing. All I see is myself staring out looking lost and small. A tiny little broken figurine of a boy that stood precariously on a wooden stand. Like my heart is beating in my almost hollow ceramic chest lined with hairline cracks and chipped porcelain. When I look into my own eyes in the glass of a mirror, all I see is blue.

Sunsets and parched land. Cacti and tumbleweeds. Horses and baked beans around the fire. Singing about being home on the range. How could two eyes show you all that? I see that every time I look into Jack's eyes. And the horned crown. No matter how many cowboys and western images I see, that one stands out. It looked elaborately made of antlers and circled his iris.

We were lying in the bed the bed with the heat igniting it to flames. No coldness would be found at all on the bed. Not on the other side of the pillow or on the other side of the mattress even. Our bodies had lit up the whole bed in a sleepy heat. I had lazily looked into Jack's eyes and saw the antler-crown. Now I'm afraid to look. I'm afraid of what else I'll see in his eyes. When we make love—because that's what it is with Jack—I keep my eyes closed so I don't have to see that strange crown again. Who knows what it means? Who knows what it could mean? If a broken chain meant a broken arm, what did a horned crown mean?

But sometimes, I don't even have to look into his eyes. I could be lying alone and see Jack but not Jack. Jack wrapped in blankets with a slack mouth and bruised arms. But I had seen him before. When I was little and lying in a dark room in a sweat-soaked bed, kneading my hands on my groin. I would see a boy sitting alone on a bridge with eyes alight with western dreams but alone. That was the boy I dreamed about when I was little. It seems strange that when I touched myself when I was little was the boy who I let touch me almost every night. But it doesn't seem strange now. The only thing is that I see all that in his eyes and when I'm alone but I see nothing when it's just me.

I see a little boy at the ocean. A little boy with the sea on his chest and the waves in his eyes. Two eyes. Not one. Not yet. A little boy with a smile so wide that it seemed to hurt him. I've seen that smile and I've seen those eyes. At least one of them. A little boy with ocean-sprayed hair was now a big boy with a patch and dirty clothes in varying shades of brown.

I first saw the ocean after the strike. We were alone in Tibby's. The sun ignited the dust that sparkled like water and floated in the air like jellyfish. Or they spun like waves in the air. I had walked in to see him sitting alone at a table, eating a sandwich like a shark. Tearing at the bread and meat like he hadn't eaten in days. He probably hadn't. I had said hi and he looked up and I was at the ocean. At the ocean with the little boy who was as alone in the sea as he was on land but it didn't matter because he was running wild and free across the rocks that jutted that cut his bare feet. Then I was back at the restaurant.

I didn't see anything bad in Blink's eye. Maybe you needed to look into both eyes to see something bad. I didn't see crowns or broken chains but I saw more than plain color like in mine. Those oceans full of mystery and yearning. I didn't see him wrapped and bruised like Jack and I never saw him when I was little. But I see him now. I see him all yearning and wild and wanting to break free. But ceramic boys can't help people. They can only see.

I wonder what it would have been like to be an uncle. What it would have been like if Sarah had had the baby. The father wasn't Jack. Sarah had been taking sewn clothes and doilies down to the store to sell when it happened. Or rather, when Morris DeLancey happened. He reached out from the alley and pushed her against the wall. It was over before she could even had reacted. Jack vowed to kill him. I couldn't blame him. My mother had sobbed for nights but my father didn't do anything. He was angry and sad and even enraged but he didn't do anything about it. I hated him for that. I wished the sickles I had seen in his eyes would come and kill him. But they didn't.

I had seen moons in Sarah's eyes. Once empty but now full to bursting. She told me she had stopped bleeding. When she had started, she told me it was a curse. I had thought some monster was down there, clawing at her. She told me everything no matter how much it disturbed me. When she said she had stopped, I had been happy. I mean, the curse was over. But then her stomach started to swell and I knew that it was worse.

So maybe she would've had the baby if she hadn't had that accident in Denton's carriage—was it an accident? Maybe she would've had the baby and maybe I would've been an uncle. What would I have seen in her baby's eyes? Would they be Sarah's or would they be Morris's? Would the baby be tanned and dark haired or fair? But it didn't matter. The baby was dead and Sarah holes herself up inside of herself. I want to hold her but she's walled up. I see no more moons. I only see tears.

I once hated both brothers. Now I hate only one. It's hard to forgive someone who raped your sister for no real reason. I used to hate Oscar too. With that snide smile on his face all the time, silently mocking everyone with it. That was until I looked into his eyes. I hadn't meant to. I refused to. I figured that neither of them had a soul and that looking into their eyes would make me feel cold and dead inside. But I saw them one day. I saw a great man, wired with muscles. He was incredibly tall and wide with hands like slabs of beef. He held a small boy up against the wall and was banging him against it while an older boy pounded on his back with weak fists. I saw older boys punching him on his way to school, chanting 'incest is best' behind him. I've seen him standing in front of a mirror covered in cuts and bruises and tightening his fists. I've seen him punching and hurting to stop the pain inside him. No, I didn't hate Oscar. What I felt was worse. Pity.

Pity was what he seemed to be allergic too. I'd give him a sad look, knowing that he felt such pain and he'd puff his chest out and glare like he hated me for it. Hated me more than the boys who would beat him for what he felt. How affected he was when he heard what happened to Sarah. How betrayed he had felt. How he kept it down behind sneers and threats. But I can't do anything about it. Even if he wasn't a fortress of rage and testosterone, I wouldn't. I can't help people. I can't take away his past just like I can't give Blink sight or bring Sarah's baby back. It's all in the past. But I see it. I see it and it sometimes makes me sick.

I want to see more than this. I want to see myself. I want Jack to kiss me and look into my eyes and tell me what he sees. But if he looks into mine, I have to look into his and I don't want to see the crown anymore. I don't want to see him wrapped in bandages but I want him to see me. I don't want to see these things anymore. I don't want to see moons and stars and knives and oceans. I want to just see people for people. Not past traumas or wishes. It makes me sick inside but maybe it's what must be done with it. But I'm young still, I guess, and I don't know how to use these images.

So I tell Jack tonight. I tell him about everything I've seen and who. He looks down into my eyes and smiles. I want to ask him what he sees when he looks at them but I don't. I don't have to. Because suddenly the cracks and chips disappear and porcelain turns to flesh and I'm not cold and hollow but warm and full. So I open my eyes. And I see sunsets and beans and the crown. And bruised mummy-Jack. The cold feeling returns but I smile anyway. It's hard to smile with ceramic lips but Jack kisses them anyway. And I wonder what I can do to stop him from being bruised.


End file.
